


Frederick the Great goes to Nando's

by PlinytheYounger



Category: 18th Century CE RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, misuse of kant, super blasphemous philosophe erotica, terrible coffee, too much dogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlinytheYounger/pseuds/PlinytheYounger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick II of Prussia goes for a cheeky Nando's with the lads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"I prostrated myself in the confessional, in a fury of repentance, hardly daring to lift my sinful eyes. A faint, glowing shape appeared before me, as I was seized with reverence, and then began to poke pinkly through the grille. I leaned closer, eager to kiss the holy hand - or _was_ it a hand? - which seemed to quiver and expand by leaps and bounds before me. My lips closed in on it...and then.....I just chundered everywhere."

"D'Argens, you absolute legend," Frederick said. "That's the kind of content I like to hear."

D'Argens took a bow and climbed back into his chair in a flurry of applause. La Mettrie was moved enough to give him a chicken wing.

"Imagine trying to get away with that at Coffee Republic," La Mettrie added. "That lot think they're cheeky, but five seconds into challenging their belief in mind/body dualism and you're more likely to get a boot to the face than some nice Darjeeling."

"*And* they won't make your latte with extra peri-peri sauce."

"The bastards," La Mettrie confirmed. He was sitting next to Keith, who, while he had only a layman's interest in destroying Cartesian orthodoxy, had a very good heart and a fantastic kilt collection.

Frederick topped up his coffee with a shot of prosecco and continued: "A benevolent Creator would have made people better than they were; as it is, the only counter-evidence to the universe being frankly pretty wank is the potato."

"And Greek statuary," Algarotti added.

"And dogs," said Keith. "Face it, Take Me Out would be better with dogs instead of people."

"Yes," said Frederick, "*Yes*."

"Right!" La Mettrie said, "Can you imagine a dog calling itself a meninist? Or a dog taking another dog for a romantic three days in Tenerife, telling her she was the one, and then leaving her washed up in Margate without so much as "poke" on Facebook. Would a hand-designed figment of the divine turn up on a beach holiday in a fedora and Bermuda shorts, or would only a mechanical system of electric impulses and misfiring chemicals act like that much of a pillock?"

"Och," said Keith, "You've got that one right."

Frederick's reply was interrupted by his sister tugging urgently on his sleeve from her perch on the arm of his chair.

"He's up to it again," Wilhelmina whispered in his ear, "Look left."

The subject of Wilhelmina's suspicion had his nose pressed to the front window, gazing upon the tasteful Afro-Portugese decor and the lively discourse within.

His idyll was interrupted by a tall and formidable woman in a cagoule. "Joseph," she shouted, loudly enough to be heard within, "that's the wanker who burned down our Wetherspoon's, and don't you forget it!"

"But mum -- "

"Don't "but mum" me! I don't care how witty his Twitter account is, arson is arson, and we're going to claw back our portion of the Friday night curry market or die trying!"

She took his hand and dragged him firmly down the street.

"That Wetherspoons had it coming," Wilhelmina said, loyally. "Believe me _I know their every move_. Any alliance they try to make with Gregg's will be doomed from the start."

"A Socrates or a Plato would have done the same," Frederick said, "if they had my overheads."  
  
\----

Realising from experience that this discourse could continue for quite some time, D'Argens climbed upstairs to visit his friends. It was a crowded Nando's, but, on the other hand, only three people in it were wearing matching "TEAM LEIBNIZ" T-shirts. He ruffled Mendelssohn's hair affectionately.

"Brevs! I brought you some extra garlic bread. You're missing some top quality bants."

"Hey, over here we have some top quality Kants," Mendelssohn said.

Kant gave him a quick wave and then bent back over his neatly arranged plate of carrot sticks and the manuscript of "RELIGION WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF MERE BANTER"

"French "metaphysics" might have their sexy, despairing allure," Mendelssohn said, "but the dull impenetrability of German philosophy is just one reason why it's so rewarding."

"Yeah, but an uncaring, random universe _would_  be jokes," D'Argens pointed out.

Lessing, who had been trying to pat his hair into shape in vain, cut in. "It sounds more interesting than being Moses "Tragedy Should Really Be About People Making Sensible, Well-Informed Life Choices" Mendelssohn!"

"Better that than being G.E. "The Zenith Of Aesthetic Experience Is Someone Crying Over How They Can't Hug Every Cat" Lessing!"

"Ooh, I'd better put some pre-established harmony on that burn, Bro-ses!"

"Nice one, Bro-tthold!"

They high-fived. "See? This is the fun table," Mendelssohn said. "Next we're going to discuss the concept of the sublime with, like, so many references to Locke."

"It's going to be _awesome_ ," Lessing added.

"Yeah, and you can check out my OT3 fixit fic," Nicolai said, "Instead of Young Werther's gun being loaded with bullets, right, there's just a chicken in there, so -- "

His sentence was drowned out by an immense clap of thunder. Seconds later, the automatic doors of the affordable dining establishment flew open in a flash of lightning.

"YOU'RE INTERROGATING THE TEXT FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE," cried the figure silhouetted in the doorway. Rainwater cascaded from him. Only an artlessly-draped towel preserved his modesty.

"Is it a man? Is it a beast?" came a voice from the upper floor, "No, it's Johann Wolfgang von Goethe!"

"IT IS I," Goethe said. "THE LAKES OF SWITZERLAND COULD NOT CONTAIN ME."

"Nothing could!"

"Does he have an eight-pack?"

"I hear someone read his book and jumped off a cliff!"

"I hear someone read it and started wearing yellow trousers!"

"You can't kiss him because his LIPS are CURSED."

In this tumult, no one dared to approach the young poet, whose hair still gleamed with fragments of lightning as he ordered chicken with extra, extra hot sauce.

"I WILL HAVE IT 'TO GO'," he said, "EXISTENCE IS AN UNCEASING ROUND OF MOTION."

Someone clearly had to step in, and that person, as always, was Pastor Lavater.

He looked at the poet very seriously, and laid one hand firmly on his wet shoulder. "Johann Wolfgang," he said, "Look at your life. Look at your choices. You need Jesus."

This led to a general uproar.

"Not this _again_!" "Do you want to start a support group?" "I need Jesus IN ME!" "Jesus' example of resisting immoral desires is only a partial victory for humankind, as we must struggle against these desires by ourselves, with the innermost adoption of general moral principles in our disposition!"

There was only one response to that -- a single mortal leap to escape his situation. With a single bound, Goethe was on top of the table. His feet bestrode the complimentary napkins. His towel majestically girded his loins. His hair dripped pondweed onto the spicy potato wedges.

He hurled his message to the world: "I CANNOT BE SHAMED OR TAMED!"

When the doors slid wide again, they afforded anyone who entered an entire tableau: the shirtless author, the shocked or indifferent audience according to their level of committed materialism, and the huge portrait of a chicken's head which hung above them all.

"I see nothing's changed here," said the newcomer tartly."Freedom of conscience...and of cock."

"Voltaire." Frederick let his spaniel slip from his lap. "Of all the Nandos in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine."


	2. Chapter 2

“Voltaire!” said Keith, springing to his feet.

“Voltaire!!!” D'Argens said, spilling lemon-herb sauce on his friends in his excitement.

“VOLTAIRE!!!!!!” came the universal shout.

“Someone get our guest some Naughty Natas on the house, and make it quick,” Wilhelmina said. “We can't fail a man with 4.7m followers on Twitter.”

“My dear Wilhelmina,” Voltaire said, “how delighted I am that the Hohenzollern family could produce someone as cultured, as charming, as lacking in unforgivable malice as you. You have the soul of a tiger and the heart of a tabby-cat.”

“And I'm chuffed that France could produce a man capable of stopping dogpiling Jean-Jacques Rousseau on social media,” Wilhelmina said, “It's only been, what, five weeks now?”

“Yes, I see he's just written a thinkpiece condemning the very existence of the Internet,” Voltaire said, “without the pernicious influence of Tim Berners-Lee, man might be free to live in merciful ignorance of his own stupidity, without the corrupting knowledge that he might eat cooked meat, build himself houses, and raise his own children.”

Frederick's spaniel trotted up, wide-eyed to Voltaire, and pushed its head insinuatingly against his familiar legs. “Ah, bonjour, live happily licking your own genitalia without the wicked sanctions of philosophy,” Voltaire said, and scratched behind her ears.

“Watch out, Doggie,” Frederick observed. “He'll pet you with one hand and savage you with the other. It's just how he operates.”

“Little one, I don't remember ever scratching you,” Voltaire said, “but I do recall your giving me a little nip when overexcited, of which I still bear the scars.”

“You seem in good nick to me,” Frederick said, “judging by your latest work. You're the Pamela Anderson of literature - age has only made you that much fitter. “

“Fit, he says. Fit! it'll be a miracle if I last till the end of the week.. Even my pulse is feeble.”

Frederick reached for his forearm, turned it over, and examined it with a slightly cynical air.

“It's like gripping Ross Kemp by the wrist” Frederick said. “You'll write my obituary.”

You could have cut the tension in the room with a knife, if there had been any left after the depredations of last night's party of students.

“AHEM,” said Goethe, shivering a little atop the table, where he had been standing for the past fifteen minutes. There were goosebumps along his arms. He looked a little like a shipwrecked Orestes. “I THINK I NEED A LARGER TOWEL.”

“Oh, right,” Frederick said, making no effort whatsoever to rise. “It's you. The only man who writes more bollocks than Shakespeare. It must be exhausting waiting around all day for the verb.”

“Please accept this realisation of my imperfect duty to benevolence towards my fellow man” Kant said, “extant in the material world by what we can only mutually hope is a flannelette bathrobe. Also this carrot stick.”

“YOU TOP LAD,” Goethe said, flinging it over his seaweed-draped shoulders. “YOUR KINDNESS IS A GOLDEN CHAIN BINDING ALL OF SOCIETY.”

“My assistance is merely what is due to you as an independent agent, pursuing your own freely chosen purposes, rather than as the passive object of my actions,” Kant said, “but cheers, mate.”

None of this small scene had had any effect on the two men in the foyer, whose confrontation continued to absorb their energies.

“Just like when we first met,” Frederick said, “except it's me taking your pulse now. What a shame your Emilie du Chatelet couldn't make it this time either.”

“A four year old child is a grave business, but a four-momentum in spacetime has even more gravity,” Voltaire said, “so her young poet has Little Emilie on his hip, her husband is doing the Tesco's run, and her oldest friend is keeping out of the way while she's on the home run with the subatomic collider. Helen might've launched a thousand ships, but my dear Emilie could start a nuclear apocalypse if I jog her elbow.”

“Oh. Damn.” Frederick said, none too feelingly.

“She says she's thinking of you,” Voltaire said, “well, more that she's got an eye on you, and if I seem down-hearted she'll blow your Naughty Natas off.”

“You love those Naughty Natas,” Frederick said.

“My arteries are a martyr to them, it's true,” Voltaire said. “But we can at least thank the Supreme Being together that Emilie isn't having to use Leibniz's calculus notation instead of Newton's.”

“Oi! There was a good reason for those symb--” came a dwindling voice from the balcony, as though someone had started to object and then had very much regretted speaking.

“Oh,” Voltaire said, gazing up at the source of the cry, “It's **you**. The worst intern I have ever hired, given that most of them have stolen a latte off me rather than an entire *book*."

“Sorry,” Lessing said earnestly, “I just got pretty stuck into your “Age of Charles 12th”, and, you know -- I did give it back!“

“You got _stuck into the 09:52 to Glasgow with my USB stick, that's what you got stuck into,_ ” Voltaire said sharply. “I hope the concept of intellectual property theft penetrates deeply enough into your fluffy man-bunned little head that you can remember it even when you are seized with the overwhelming desire for a deep-fried Mars Bar.”

His friends had both started to their feet in his defence - “Look, he does things like this all the time!”

“He really doesn't know the meaning of a deadline!” Mendelssohn added earnestly.

“He went to Swansea to find himself once,” Nicolai said, “Swansea!”

"You never know, Swansea too can contain truths necessary to human felicity."

"I don't ever worry about your beautiful soul," Mendelssohn said, "your time management skills, on the other hand..."

"How many committees did you agree to join last week?"

"Touche, as they say in PriestKink SarcasmWorld," Mendelssohn said. "I don't think you need to get too bothered over M. de Voltaire's opinions."

"Brevs," D'Argens said, "mon cher, don't tell me you secretly hate my bants."

“Well, you've got a heart of gold,” Mendelssohn said very seriously to the author of Pounded In The Clit By The Passionate, Lustful Urgings Of My Body, Which Are One Of Many Biological Forces Which Constrain Our Actions, All Of Which Are Ultimately Determined By A God To Whom Good And Evil Is Logically Meaningless, Within A Mechanistic World From Which We Conclude Our Sole Duty Is To Make One Another Happy, All Else Being Illusion And Prejudice; Also By A Series Of Hot Frenchmen.

Alas, the philosophical differences of the ground floor of Nando's were not being worked out by such peaceable means:

"I hate you with every fiber of my being!! I didn't know how to resist your charms - a poet, a musician, a senior Nando's manager, and one who pretended to love me! AND I THOUGHT I LOVED YOU!"

"I THOUGHT THE WORLD OF YOU! BEFORE YOU DISAPPOINTED THE ASHY LAST OF MY CYNICAL FAITH IN HUMANKIND BY TAKING 75p OUT OF PETTY CASH EVERY NIGHT."

"YOU BASTARD, THEY PROVED NOTHING IN THE SMALL CLAIMS COURT -- “

"YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU SPENT IT ON OFFICE SUPPLIES, YOU FINAGLING, DISHONEST -- "

A furious Voltaire, unable, for a wretched moment, to make his argument in a pointed 140 character epigram, stormed across to Frederick's table, sending three red plastic chairs flying and cornering his 5' 5” opponent against the Formica table. He settled for interrupting him with a finger to the lips.

“One more word,” Voltaire said, “one more word of slander to salt the wounds you yourself have inflicted by having me locked in the stationery cupboard overnight -- ”

Frederick pried his hand away with one of his own. “Look, I didn't give my Nandocas that order. I would've let my RPF go viral rather than subject you to 8 hours of that deep-fryer smell.”

“If you'd told me that then....” said Voltaire, still gripping Frederick's hand. “Well, at least it wasn't the Subway smell”

“Truly the best of all possible worlds,” Frederick said drily.

“You monadfucker,” Voltaire said, and pushed him right back in a scatter of paper napkins and tiny novelty flags. “You -- ”

Frederick had effected his escape from further philosophical insult by hauling Voltaire bodily after him onto the table and then crushing his lips to his, which was effective enough to distract him. The author of various satirical works on the entire fast food industry made a breathy sound somewhere between fury and the awkward consciousness that he was enthusiastically snogging his nemesis in the middle of a crowded Nando's, and had just kicked Keith in the throes of passion.

“Och, not again,” said Keith resignedly.

“Not thinking with his soul, is he?” La Mettrie said, with some satisfaction. “The organic matter of his nerves and fibres really is the determining factor, eh?”

“It's like a trainwreck,” D'Argens said. “I should look away, but I really can't.”

Mendelssohn ducked beneath the railing, scandalised. “Socrates didn't discuss metaphysics like **that**!”

“Yeah, I've got some news for you on that one, brevs,” Nicolai said.

Goethe, cheered by donning Kant's generously-proportioned bathrobe, emblazoned with “OUT OF THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY, NO STRAIGHT THING WAS EVER MADE”, leaned over the balcony with a loudspeaker:

“GET IN!!!! SUCH EMPFINDSAMKEIT!!!!”

  


  


 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Nerd notes here: http://plinytheyounger.tumblr.com/post/141052372133/nerd-notes-on-my-nandos-story-for-nerds


End file.
